DALLAS — Louisiana lawmakers avoided a special session with Thursday’s near-unanimous approval of a $25.4 billion budget for fiscal 2014.
The compromise spending plan was approved 104-0 in the House and 38-1 in the Senate two hours before the scheduled end of the 90-day session. Fiscal 2014 will begin July 1.
House Speaker Chuck Kleckley praised the legislative negotiators who crafted the House Bill 1 budget proposal acceptable to conservative Republicans known as “fiscal hawks” while protecting education and social service programs.
“We’re not completely happy. The Senate’s not completely happy,” Kleckley said. “But I bet the people of Louisiana are happy.”
Gov. Bobby Jindal hailed the “fiscally responsible” compromise budget bill.
“The hard work of legislators from both parties and increased revenue projections has produced a balanced budget that invests in our top priorities and protects our reforms,” Jindal said. “I commend the Legislature for their work, and I look forward to signing HB 1 into law."
The budget was almost derailed June 4 when the House unanimously rejected the Senate’s amendments to the budget bill.
The biggest dispute between the two chambers was over the use of non-recurring revenues from legal settlements and other one-time sources for recurring expenses.
An executive budget proposed in March by Jindal included the expenditure of $525 million of one-time funds, but the House on May 10 replaced that money with a combination of spending cuts and limits on state tax credits and exemptions.
The Senate on June 1 adopted a number of amendments that restored $350 million of the House’s spending cuts and appropriated $272 million of one-time revenues.
Rep. Jim Fannin, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said the revised final budget includes $80 million of one-time revenues.
The final budget provides an additional $69 million to public education, with half of it dedicated to a one-time salary boost for certified classroom teachers. Jindal agreed to include the salary increase in future budgets.
The fiscal hawks agreed to use $313 million from a fiscal 2012 surplus to plug a spending gap in the state’s Medicaid program in the current fiscal year. House Republicans wanted to deposit the surplus into the rainy day fund, but went along with the Senate’s plan in exchange for two bills amending the budget process.
It was too late in the fiscal year to avoid filling the Medicaid gap, said Senate President John Alario, D-Westwego.
“If you don't address it, I don't know how you make that adjustment with two weeks to go in the fiscal year,” Alario said. “We all said we wanted that money to go into the rainy day fund. It rained. It’s storming.”
The state will fund a college scholarship program in 2014 with $60 million of one-time up-front savings realized from a refunding of outstanding revenue bonds issued in 2001 by the Louisiana Tobacco Settlement Financing Corp. The refunding is expected to generate savings of $143 million over the next three fiscal years.
